When We Are Bound

Young at Heart Message

I came across a video this past week that I’d seen several times before.

The video portrays a teacher in a classroom – probably a high school classroom.

She tells her class that the day’s lesson will start with an activity – an easy activity, so no one should feel stressed about it at all.
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She then proceeds to pass out sheets of paper to her students.
 
She tells the students to keep the paper upside down until she tells them to start.
 
The instructions she gives for the activity is that when she tells them to flip their paper over, their task is to determine what the anagram for the words on the other side of the sheet of paper are.
 
For those of you who do not know what an anagram is, it’s a word that can be made out of another word.
 
For example, an anagram for the word “heart” would be “earth.”
 
So, she’s passed the paper out and she tells the class that this should be a very easy task for them.
 
She tells them to flip their paper over and work out the first anagram. When they are done, they should raise their hands.
 
In just a few seconds, the entire right side of the room has raised their hands.
 
The left side of the room, however, does not have a single person who has raised their hand.
 
The teacher once again tells them that it should be quite an easy task.
 
But, she says, let’s move on to the next one. Please do the second word on your list and raise your hand when you have figured out the anagram.
 
Again, the entire right side of the room raised their hands within a few seconds.
 
The left side of the room, getting more frustrated and exasperated at this point, has no one who has raised their hand.
 
Finally, she asks them to find the anagram for the third word.
 
Once again, the entire right side of the room has raised their hands. This time, a handful of people on the left side of the room have raised their hands, but most are still frustrated and have given up even trying.
 
The teacher then explains to the class that she handed out two different sheets to the different sides of the room. Here are words that were on their sheets:
 
Right side:                               Left Side:
 
Bat                                             Whirl
Lemon                                      Slapstick
Cinerama                                 Cinerama
 
The first two words on the right side’s sheet were incredibly easy.
 
Bat = Tab
Lemon = Melon
 
The first two words on the left side sheet were impossible because there aren’t any anagrams for those words:
 
Whirl
Slapstick
 
Now, what’s interesting is that both sides of the room had the same third word.
 
Cinerama = American
 
The right side of the room all got it quickly because they had been reinforced by the prior two words that not only could they do it, but that it was easy.
 
The left side of the room, on the other hand, were given an impossible task. They were not reinforced by getting the first two words correct because they couldn’t get them correct.
 
And, they were told that the task was easy several times.
 
Additionally, their counterparts on the other side of the room made the task look easy, so the left side of the room didn’t understand why it wasn’t easy for them.
 
By the time the teacher got to the final word, most of the students on the left side of the room believed that they were not capable of figuring out the anagrams, so they gave up trying, even though the third word was achievable.
 
The teacher then explained to them that in 5 minutes or less, she induced learned helplessness.
 
Is anyone familiar with learned helplessness?
 
According to the American Psychological Association, learned helplessness occurs when someone repeatedly faces uncontrollable, stressful situations and does not exercise control when it becomes available.
 
Essentially, they have “learned” that they are helpless in that situation and they no longer try to change it, even when change is possible.
 
Learned helplessness can occur in children or adults, and it can manifest differently in different age groups. It can even occur in animals.
 
A child might, for example, work really hard at learning something, but then fail the test on that subject. If this happens too many times, that child may begin to feel like no matter how hard they work, they cannot understand the concept.
 
Soon, they may lose confidence not only in that task, but in other tasks as well. They may begin to think they are dumb and can’t learn anything.
 
In adults, it can manifest in a lot of different ways. Some examples might include:
 
·       People who have tried to quit smoking several times, but have not been able to maintain it may begin to believe they will never be successful at quitting smoking
·       Similarly, people who try to lose weight but gain much of it back may conclude that it isn’t worth even trying to lose weight
·       Someone may repeatedly try to interview for jobs and not get hired and may start to believe they are not capable of getting a job
 
The point here is that learned helplessness can be detrimental to a person’s mental and physical wellbeing.
 
Once a person believes they are incapable of something, they are less motivated and less willing to keep trying that thing, and that will sometimes extend to other things as well.
 
Learned helplessness can increase feelings of depression, anxiety, and stress in both humans and animals.
 
The Message
 
I bring this concept up because in today’s scripture, we encounter “Legion,” a man supposedly possessed by a “legion” of demons or evil spirits.
 
Many people are bound. I would say that most of us are bound by something, even if we don’t know it - anxiety, fear, unforgiveness, anger, bitterness, disappointment, distraction, memories of the past, etc.
 
The things we are bound by can affect our perceptions, experiences, and quality of life.
 
This man is bound and likely doesn’t even know it. Or, he knows it, but has an extreme case of learned helplessness and at this point in his life, he doesn’t believe anything can be done about his situation.
 
He is so used to being treated as some kind of disease or inferior human being that when he encounters Jesus, he says “I beg you, do not torment me.”
 
This man has learned that when people interact with him, they torment him – they chain him and treat him like he’s not worthy of love or care or compassion.
 
So, he expects the same from Jesus.
 
This man is alive, but he’s living in a dead place – literally in the tombs. But he’s also in a dead place in his own mind.
 
He has been isolated from family, community, and society.
 
And that isolation just creates more demons in his mind.
 
This man probably started out with one challenge – maybe a mental health issue like PTSD, anxiety, depression, or another mental ailment.
 
And then he started to be treated like he was nothing – unworthy, incapable, maybe even dumb or dangerous.
 
And he started to believe that about himself.
 
And soon, he was tormented by the demons in his own mind that caused him to be this way.
 
Then, he encounters Jesus, and Jesus sets him free from the prison of his own mind.
 
The psalm we heard in our first reading is like a soundtrack in the background of this man’s life story.
 
It is a lament crying out in prayer: “But you, O Lord, do not be far away! O my help, come quickly to my aid.”
 
Nowadays, it is not popular or “politically correct,” to talk about demons or demonic possession.
 
We know a lot more about how the human mind works now. It is likely that many of the people Jesus encountered had some kind of diagnosable mental health condition that was seen at that time as demons.
 
And yet, despite this, healing these ailments is a central part of Jesus’ ministry.
 
Jesus encounters people who are bound, and he sets them free – even and especially from devils, demons, and unclean spirits.
 
Jesus isn’t afraid to address these things, and the most beautiful part is that Jesus does not judge or condemn the people.
 
He sees them as fully human, fully alive, and fully deserving of respect, kindness, and compassion.
 
Today, many people are a lot like the man in this scripture.
 
Perhaps not as dramatic as his story, but many of us are bound by things that keep us from living our lives to the fullest.
 
We are bound by things that keep us from fully living into our humanity, and we often believe that because we are bound, we are not worthy of Jesus’ love.
 
But Jesus proves time and time again that we are worthy of his love and care.
 
What does freedom look like, according to this story?
 
It is not a literal unchaining.
 
True freedom requires surrender to Jesus.
 
When this man sees Jesus, he falls down before him.
 
As I mentioned, we often do not know or acknowledge our own chains or our own bondage.
 
We are, however, very good at identifying other people’s chains or places of bondage, aren’t we?
 
We may even be able to call out systemic or societal bondage.
 
But, we are very often prevented from coming to Jesus and surrendering our whole hearts and selves to deliverance from the things that keep us bound.
 
Arrogance, fear of shame, or the masks we wear keep us happily oblivious to our own chains.
 
When the man falls down before Jesus, he acknowledges the power of God in him.
 
Falling before Jesus and seeing our own chains for what they are is not an easy task.
 
True freedom also means being restored to community.
 
When the man was bound by his demons, he existed in isolation.
 
When Jesus freed him, he was able to rejoin his community.
 
We often forget about the power of community – the power of kindness, love, respect, and compassion from other people.
 
Our chains often keep us bound in ways that prevent us from fully living into our own humanity, and fully living into our lives in community with others.
 
So, the first step in breaking our own chains and freeing ourselves from whatever binds us is to kneel before Jesus and acknowledge the chains.
 
Each one of us has different chains though, that’s the challenge.
 
I may need to acknowledge the chains of anxiety that keep me from being truly alive to my own humanity. But maybe someone else here needs to see their shame, regret, fear, or distraction from reality.
 
Jesus doesn’t care what our chains look like, he just wants to free us from them.
 
So, may we look upon our own chains, lifting whatever binds us to Jesus and allowing him to set us free.
 
May we begin the process of working through our own points of bondage so that we can live fully, joyfully, and purposefully into the bodies, minds, and spirits we have been given.
 
And may we thank Jesus for loving us through it all. Amen.

Let us pray:

Amazing and glorious God, we come before you today with the things that bind us in plain view. We’ve always known that we cannot truly hide our chains from you, but we have tried our hardest nonetheless. But today, we are ready to kneel before you, chains and all, ready to be freed. Free us, Jesus, so that we can become fully alive and fully human. Amen.

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